'Dynasty' star John Forsythe dies

John Forsythe, whose decades-long TV career stretched from the late 1940s through the early '90s, has died.

The 92-year-old Forsythe died late Thursday (April 1) of complications from pneumonia in Santa Ynez, Calif., TMZ reports. He had been battling cancer for the past year.

Forsythe was a budding stage actor when he enlisted in the Army during World War II. He acted in the Army Air Corps' stage show "Winged Victory" and had bit parts in a couple of war films in the early 1940s. Following his discharge from the Army, he was a member of the initial class at the Actors Studio. He appeared in a number of anthology shows in the '50s (and starred in Alfred Hitchcock's movie "The Trouble with Harry") before landing a breakout role in the sitcom "Bachelor Father," which ran for five seasons starting in 1957.

He worked steadily through the 1960s and '70s but became well-known again by providing the disembodied voice of Charlie on "Charlie's Angels" (a role he reprised in the two movies based on the show). That role came about more or less by accident. The actor producer Aaron Spelling originally hired to do the voiceover showed up, shall we say, unprepared to say the lines, so Spelling called his friend Forsythe to fill in.

The two reunited on "Dynasty," where Forsythe played oil tycoon Blake Carrington, whose current wife Krystle (Linda Evans) and ex Alexis (Joan Collins) were forever fighting over him.

Forsythe won two Golden Globes and earned three Emmy nominations for playing Blake. His last TV roles were in the short-lived sitcom "The Powers That Be" in 1992-93 and as host of NBC's "I Witness Video" the following season.

Forsythe and his second wife, Julie Warren, were married for 51 years before her death in 1994 and had two children; he also had a son from his first marriage, to actress Parker McCormick. He remarried in 2002; wife Nicole Carter survives him, as do his three children, six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

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